flooded with a prodigious quantity of trash. One anonymous ‘popular poet,’ whose name will never now be recovered, received 100_l._ for his last poem from a publisher who thought, no doubt, that the ‘boom’ was going to last. Of this popular poet’s work he sold exactly fifty copies. Another, a ‘humorous’ bard, who also received a large sum for his immortal poem, showed in the unhappy publisher’s books no more than eighteen copies sold. This was too ridiculous, and from that day to this the trade side of poetry has remained under a cloud. That of novelist has, fortunately for some, been redeemed from contempt by the enormous success of Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot, and by the solid, though substantial, success of the lesser lights. Poets have now to pay for the publication of their own works, but novelists--some of them--command a price; those, namely, who do not have to pay for the production of their works. [Illustration: SIR WALTER SCOTT] The popular taste, thus cloyed with novels and poetry, turned to books on popular science, on statistics, on health, and on travel. Barry Cornwall’s ‘Life of Kean,’ Campbell’s ‘Life of Siddons,’ the Lives of Sale, Sir Thomas Picton, and Lord Exmouth, for example, were all well received. So Ross’s ‘Arctic Seas,’ Lamartine’s ‘Pilgrimage,’ Macfarlane’s ‘Travels in the East,’ Holman’s ‘Round the World,’ and Quin’s ‘Voyage down the Danube,’ all commanded a sale of 1,000 copies each at least. Works of religion, of course, always succeed, if they are written with due regard to the religious leaning of the moment. It shows how religious fashions change when we find that the copyright of the works of Robert Hall realised 4,000_l._ and that of Charles Simeon’s books 5,000_l._; while of the Rev. Alexander Fletcher’s ‘Book of Family Devotions,’ published at 24_s._, 2,000 copies were sold on the day of publication. I dare say the same thing would happen again to-day if another Mr. Fletcher were to hit upon another happy thought in the way of a religious book. [Illustration: REGINA’S MAIDS OF HONOUR.]